Late Night Story (1978–1979): Season 1, Episode 2 - The Emissary - full transcript
(CREEPY MUSIC PLAYING)
He knew it was autumn again,
because Tory came romping
into the house,
bringing the windy, crisp,
cold smell of autumn with him.
In every black curl of his dog hair,
he carried autumn.
Leaf flakes tangled
in his dark ears and muzzle,
dropping from his white vest
and off his flourished tail.
The dog smelled just like autumn.
Martin Christie sat up in bed,
and reached down
with one pale, small hand.
Tory barked and displayed a generous
length of pink, rippling tongue,
which he passed over and along
the back of Martin's hand.
Tory warmed Martin's thin body
with his dog warmness.
Martin relished the clean dog smell
and the litter
of fallen leaves on the quilt.
He didn't care if his mother scolded.
"What's it like outside, Tory? Tell me!"
Lying there, Tory would tell him.
And lying there, Martin would know
what autumn was like.
Like in the old days,
before sickness had put him to bed.
His only contact with autumn now
was this brief chill.
This leaf-flaked fur,
the compact canine representation
of summer gone.
This autumn by proxy.
And wherever Tory went,
then Martin could go,
because Tory could always tell him
by the touch, feel, consistency,
the wet, dry or crispness of his coat.
And lying there, holding Tory,
Martin would send his mind out
to retrace each step of Tory's way:
through fields, over the shallow glitter
of the ravine creek,
darting across the marble spread
of the graveyard,
into the woods, over the meadows,
and where all the wild, laughing
autumn sports went on,
Martin could now go
through his emissary.
His mother's voice
sounded downstairs, angrily.
Her short, angry walking
came up the hall steps.
Martin pushed. "Down, Tory!"
Tory vanished under the bed
just before the bedroom door opened,
and his mother looked in,
blue eyes snapping.
"That dog is more trouble, always
upsetting things and digging places!
"He was in Ms Tarkins' garden
this morning and dug a big hole!
"This is the third hole
he's dug this week!"
"Maybe he's looking for something."
"Something fiddlesticks!
He's just a curious nuisance!
"He can't keep that black nose of his
out of anything! Always curious!"
There was a hairy pizzicato of tail
under the bed.
His mother couldn't help smiling.
"Well," she ended,
"if he doesn't stop digging,
"I'll have to keep him in
and not let him run!"
Martin opened his mouth wide,
"Oh, no, Mum, don't do that!
"Then I wouldn't know
anything he tells me!"
His mother's voice softened.
"Does he, Son?"
"Sure!
"He goes around and comes back and
tells what happens, tells everything!"
His mother's hand was spun glass,
touching his head.
"I'm glad he tells you,
and I'm glad you've got him."
They both sat a moment,
considering how worthless
the last year
would have been without Tory.
"Only two more months,"
thought Martin, of being in bed,
and, like the doctor said,
he'd be up and around.
Martin locked a special collar
attachment around Tory's neck.
It was a note painted on a tin square.
"My name is Tory. Will you visit
my master, who is sick? Follow me."
Tory carried it out
into the world every day.
You could hear the dog yipping
far down the street and away,
going to fetch visitors.
Yesterday, Tory had brought Mrs Holloway
from Elm Avenue
with a storybook for a present.
The day before, Tory had sat up
and begged at Mr Jacobs, the jeweller.
Mr Jacobs had bent and near-sightedly
deciphered the tag message
and sure enough, had come shuffling
and waddling to pay Martin a call.
Now, Martin heard the dog returning
through the smoky afternoon,
barking, running, barking again.
Footsteps came lightly after the dog.
Somebody rang
the downstairs bell, softly.
His mother answered the door,
voices talked.
Tory raced upstairs, leaped on the bed,
Martin leaned forward excitedly,
his face shining,
to see who'd come upstairs this time.
Maybe Ms Palmborg, or Mr Elias,
or Ms Chendress, or...
The visitor walked upstairs,
talking to his mother.
It was a young woman's voice,
talking with a laugh in it.
The door opened. Martin had company!
Four days passed
in which Tory did his job.
Reported morning, afternoon
and evening temperatures,
soil consistencies, leaf colours,
rain levels,
and, most important of all,
brought visitors.
Ms Haight again on Saturday.
She was the young, laughing,
handsome woman,
with gleaming brown hair
and a soft way of talking.
She lived in the big house
on Park Street.
It was her third visit in a month.
On Sunday, it was the Reverend Vulmar,
on Monday, Ms Clarke and Mr Hendricks,
and to each of them,
Martin explained his dog.
How in spring, he was odorous
of wild flowers and fresh earth,
in summer he was baked warm, sun-crisp,
in autumn now, a treasure trove
of gold leaves
hidden in his pelt
for Martin to explore out.
Then one morning, his mother
told Martin about Ms Haight,
the one who was so handsome and young,
and laughed.
She was dead, killed in a motoring
accident in Glen Falls.
Martin held on to his dog,
remembering Ms Haight,
thinking of the way she smiled,
thinking of her bright eyes,
her closely-cropped, chestnut hair,
her slim body, her quick walk, her nice
stories about seasons and people.
So now she was dead.
She wasn't going to laugh
or tell stories any more.
That's all there was to it.
She was dead.
"What do they do in the graveyard, Mum?
Under the ground?"
"Nothing."
"Well, you mean they just lie there?"
"Yes," said his mother,
"that's all they do."
"Why don't they get up
and walk around once in a while,
"if they get tired of lying there?"
"I think you've said enough now."
-"Sometimes I think God's pretty silly!"
-"Martin!"
Martin scowled.
"Well, you'd think
he'd find a better way!
"What if I told Tory to play dead dog?
"He does it a while, but then
he gets sick of it and wags his tail
"or blinks his eyes and walks around.
"I bet those graveyard people
do the same. Eh, Tory?"
Tory barked.
"That will do!" his mother said.
"I don't like such talk."
In mid October,
Tory began to act strangely.
He couldn't seem to find anyone
to come to visit Martin.
Nobody seemed to pay
any attention to his begging.
He came home seven days in a row
without bringing a visitor.
Martin was deeply despondent over it.
His mother explained it,
"Everybody's busy!
"People have lots to worry over
besides little, begging dogs."
"Hmm," Martin said, "I guess so."
But there was more to it than that.
Tory had a funny gleam in his eyes,
as if he wasn't really trying
or didn't care or something.
Something Martin couldn't figure out.
Maybe Tory was sick.
Well, to heck with visitors! As long
as he had Tory, everything was fine.
And then, one day, Tory ran out
and didn't come back at all.
Martin waited, quietly at first,
then nervously, then anxiously.
At suppertime,
he heard Mum and Dad call Tory.
Nothing happened.
It was no use.
There was no sound of paws
along the path outside the house,
no sharp barking in the cold night air.
Nothing.
Tory was gone.
Tory wasn't coming home, ever.
Sobbing, Martin turned his face
to his pillow.
There was no contact with the world.
The world was dead.
Martin stared at the ceiling
for the first three days of November,
watching alternate light and dark
shift across it.
Days got shorter, darker.
He could tell by the window.
The trees were naked, the autumn wind
changed its tempo and temperature.
It was just a pageant
outside his window, nothing more.
He couldn't get at it.
He listened each day, but he didn't hear
the sounds he wanted to hear.
Friday night came.
His parents were going to the theatre,
they'd be back at 11.
His mum and dad kissed him goodnight
and walked out of the house,
into the autumn.
He heard their footsteps
go down the street.
Silence then.
Martin just lay there and watched
the stars moving slowly across the sky.
If only Tory would come home,
bringing some of the world with him,
a bird or a rime thistle,
or the wind in his...
If only Tory would come home.
And then, way off somewhere,
there was a sound.
It was so small, it was like
a needle point moving through the air,
miles and miles away.
It was a sound of a dog
coming across meadows and fields,
down dark streets.
The sound of a dog running
and letting his breath out to the night!
The sound of a dog circling and running!
It came and went.
It lifted and faded.
It came forward and went back,
as if it was being led by someone
on a chain.
The faint barking continued
for five minutes,
growing louder and louder.
"Tory, come home.
Tory, come home. Tory, boy!
"Oh, Tory, where have you been?
"Oh, Tory, Tory!"
Nearer now. Very near.
Just up the street, barking!
"Tory!"
Martin held his breath.
The sound of dog feet
in the pile of dry leaves down the path.
And now, right outside the house,
barking, barking, barking!
"Tory!"
Barking to the door!
Martin shivered.
The door opened downstairs.
Someone was kind enough
to have opened the door for Tory.
Tory had brought a visitor, of course!
Mr Buchanan or Mr Jacobs
or perhaps Miss Tarkins!
The door opened and closed
and Tory came racing upstairs
and flung himself, yipping, on the bed!
"Tory, where have you been?
What have you done all this week?"
Martin laughed and cried all in one,
grabbed the dog and he held him to him.
Then he stopped laughing
and crying, suddenly.
He just stared at Tory
with wide, strange eyes.
The odour arising
from Tory was different.
It was a smell of earth.
Dead earth.
Earth that had lain cheek by jowl
with unhealthy, decaying things
six feet under.
Stinking, stinking rancid earth!
Clods of decaying earth
fell off Tory's paws.
And something else.
A small, withered fragment of skin.
Was it? Was it? Was it?
What kind of message was this from Tory?
What did such a message mean?
The stench?
The ripe, awful cemetery earth?
Tory was a bad dog,
always digging where he shouldn't dig!
Oh, Tory was a good dog,
always making friends so easily!
Tory took to liking everybody.
He brought them home with him!
And now this latest visitor
was coming up the stairs, slowly,
dragging one foot after the other.
Painfully...
slowly...
slowly...
slowly.
"Tory! Tory, where have you been?"
A clod of rank, crawling soil
dropped from the dog's chest.
The door to the bedroom moved inwards.
Martin had company.
He knew it was autumn again,
because Tory came romping
into the house,
bringing the windy, crisp,
cold smell of autumn with him.
In every black curl of his dog hair,
he carried autumn.
Leaf flakes tangled
in his dark ears and muzzle,
dropping from his white vest
and off his flourished tail.
The dog smelled just like autumn.
Martin Christie sat up in bed,
and reached down
with one pale, small hand.
Tory barked and displayed a generous
length of pink, rippling tongue,
which he passed over and along
the back of Martin's hand.
Tory warmed Martin's thin body
with his dog warmness.
Martin relished the clean dog smell
and the litter
of fallen leaves on the quilt.
He didn't care if his mother scolded.
"What's it like outside, Tory? Tell me!"
Lying there, Tory would tell him.
And lying there, Martin would know
what autumn was like.
Like in the old days,
before sickness had put him to bed.
His only contact with autumn now
was this brief chill.
This leaf-flaked fur,
the compact canine representation
of summer gone.
This autumn by proxy.
And wherever Tory went,
then Martin could go,
because Tory could always tell him
by the touch, feel, consistency,
the wet, dry or crispness of his coat.
And lying there, holding Tory,
Martin would send his mind out
to retrace each step of Tory's way:
through fields, over the shallow glitter
of the ravine creek,
darting across the marble spread
of the graveyard,
into the woods, over the meadows,
and where all the wild, laughing
autumn sports went on,
Martin could now go
through his emissary.
His mother's voice
sounded downstairs, angrily.
Her short, angry walking
came up the hall steps.
Martin pushed. "Down, Tory!"
Tory vanished under the bed
just before the bedroom door opened,
and his mother looked in,
blue eyes snapping.
"That dog is more trouble, always
upsetting things and digging places!
"He was in Ms Tarkins' garden
this morning and dug a big hole!
"This is the third hole
he's dug this week!"
"Maybe he's looking for something."
"Something fiddlesticks!
He's just a curious nuisance!
"He can't keep that black nose of his
out of anything! Always curious!"
There was a hairy pizzicato of tail
under the bed.
His mother couldn't help smiling.
"Well," she ended,
"if he doesn't stop digging,
"I'll have to keep him in
and not let him run!"
Martin opened his mouth wide,
"Oh, no, Mum, don't do that!
"Then I wouldn't know
anything he tells me!"
His mother's voice softened.
"Does he, Son?"
"Sure!
"He goes around and comes back and
tells what happens, tells everything!"
His mother's hand was spun glass,
touching his head.
"I'm glad he tells you,
and I'm glad you've got him."
They both sat a moment,
considering how worthless
the last year
would have been without Tory.
"Only two more months,"
thought Martin, of being in bed,
and, like the doctor said,
he'd be up and around.
Martin locked a special collar
attachment around Tory's neck.
It was a note painted on a tin square.
"My name is Tory. Will you visit
my master, who is sick? Follow me."
Tory carried it out
into the world every day.
You could hear the dog yipping
far down the street and away,
going to fetch visitors.
Yesterday, Tory had brought Mrs Holloway
from Elm Avenue
with a storybook for a present.
The day before, Tory had sat up
and begged at Mr Jacobs, the jeweller.
Mr Jacobs had bent and near-sightedly
deciphered the tag message
and sure enough, had come shuffling
and waddling to pay Martin a call.
Now, Martin heard the dog returning
through the smoky afternoon,
barking, running, barking again.
Footsteps came lightly after the dog.
Somebody rang
the downstairs bell, softly.
His mother answered the door,
voices talked.
Tory raced upstairs, leaped on the bed,
Martin leaned forward excitedly,
his face shining,
to see who'd come upstairs this time.
Maybe Ms Palmborg, or Mr Elias,
or Ms Chendress, or...
The visitor walked upstairs,
talking to his mother.
It was a young woman's voice,
talking with a laugh in it.
The door opened. Martin had company!
Four days passed
in which Tory did his job.
Reported morning, afternoon
and evening temperatures,
soil consistencies, leaf colours,
rain levels,
and, most important of all,
brought visitors.
Ms Haight again on Saturday.
She was the young, laughing,
handsome woman,
with gleaming brown hair
and a soft way of talking.
She lived in the big house
on Park Street.
It was her third visit in a month.
On Sunday, it was the Reverend Vulmar,
on Monday, Ms Clarke and Mr Hendricks,
and to each of them,
Martin explained his dog.
How in spring, he was odorous
of wild flowers and fresh earth,
in summer he was baked warm, sun-crisp,
in autumn now, a treasure trove
of gold leaves
hidden in his pelt
for Martin to explore out.
Then one morning, his mother
told Martin about Ms Haight,
the one who was so handsome and young,
and laughed.
She was dead, killed in a motoring
accident in Glen Falls.
Martin held on to his dog,
remembering Ms Haight,
thinking of the way she smiled,
thinking of her bright eyes,
her closely-cropped, chestnut hair,
her slim body, her quick walk, her nice
stories about seasons and people.
So now she was dead.
She wasn't going to laugh
or tell stories any more.
That's all there was to it.
She was dead.
"What do they do in the graveyard, Mum?
Under the ground?"
"Nothing."
"Well, you mean they just lie there?"
"Yes," said his mother,
"that's all they do."
"Why don't they get up
and walk around once in a while,
"if they get tired of lying there?"
"I think you've said enough now."
-"Sometimes I think God's pretty silly!"
-"Martin!"
Martin scowled.
"Well, you'd think
he'd find a better way!
"What if I told Tory to play dead dog?
"He does it a while, but then
he gets sick of it and wags his tail
"or blinks his eyes and walks around.
"I bet those graveyard people
do the same. Eh, Tory?"
Tory barked.
"That will do!" his mother said.
"I don't like such talk."
In mid October,
Tory began to act strangely.
He couldn't seem to find anyone
to come to visit Martin.
Nobody seemed to pay
any attention to his begging.
He came home seven days in a row
without bringing a visitor.
Martin was deeply despondent over it.
His mother explained it,
"Everybody's busy!
"People have lots to worry over
besides little, begging dogs."
"Hmm," Martin said, "I guess so."
But there was more to it than that.
Tory had a funny gleam in his eyes,
as if he wasn't really trying
or didn't care or something.
Something Martin couldn't figure out.
Maybe Tory was sick.
Well, to heck with visitors! As long
as he had Tory, everything was fine.
And then, one day, Tory ran out
and didn't come back at all.
Martin waited, quietly at first,
then nervously, then anxiously.
At suppertime,
he heard Mum and Dad call Tory.
Nothing happened.
It was no use.
There was no sound of paws
along the path outside the house,
no sharp barking in the cold night air.
Nothing.
Tory was gone.
Tory wasn't coming home, ever.
Sobbing, Martin turned his face
to his pillow.
There was no contact with the world.
The world was dead.
Martin stared at the ceiling
for the first three days of November,
watching alternate light and dark
shift across it.
Days got shorter, darker.
He could tell by the window.
The trees were naked, the autumn wind
changed its tempo and temperature.
It was just a pageant
outside his window, nothing more.
He couldn't get at it.
He listened each day, but he didn't hear
the sounds he wanted to hear.
Friday night came.
His parents were going to the theatre,
they'd be back at 11.
His mum and dad kissed him goodnight
and walked out of the house,
into the autumn.
He heard their footsteps
go down the street.
Silence then.
Martin just lay there and watched
the stars moving slowly across the sky.
If only Tory would come home,
bringing some of the world with him,
a bird or a rime thistle,
or the wind in his...
If only Tory would come home.
And then, way off somewhere,
there was a sound.
It was so small, it was like
a needle point moving through the air,
miles and miles away.
It was a sound of a dog
coming across meadows and fields,
down dark streets.
The sound of a dog running
and letting his breath out to the night!
The sound of a dog circling and running!
It came and went.
It lifted and faded.
It came forward and went back,
as if it was being led by someone
on a chain.
The faint barking continued
for five minutes,
growing louder and louder.
"Tory, come home.
Tory, come home. Tory, boy!
"Oh, Tory, where have you been?
"Oh, Tory, Tory!"
Nearer now. Very near.
Just up the street, barking!
"Tory!"
Martin held his breath.
The sound of dog feet
in the pile of dry leaves down the path.
And now, right outside the house,
barking, barking, barking!
"Tory!"
Barking to the door!
Martin shivered.
The door opened downstairs.
Someone was kind enough
to have opened the door for Tory.
Tory had brought a visitor, of course!
Mr Buchanan or Mr Jacobs
or perhaps Miss Tarkins!
The door opened and closed
and Tory came racing upstairs
and flung himself, yipping, on the bed!
"Tory, where have you been?
What have you done all this week?"
Martin laughed and cried all in one,
grabbed the dog and he held him to him.
Then he stopped laughing
and crying, suddenly.
He just stared at Tory
with wide, strange eyes.
The odour arising
from Tory was different.
It was a smell of earth.
Dead earth.
Earth that had lain cheek by jowl
with unhealthy, decaying things
six feet under.
Stinking, stinking rancid earth!
Clods of decaying earth
fell off Tory's paws.
And something else.
A small, withered fragment of skin.
Was it? Was it? Was it?
What kind of message was this from Tory?
What did such a message mean?
The stench?
The ripe, awful cemetery earth?
Tory was a bad dog,
always digging where he shouldn't dig!
Oh, Tory was a good dog,
always making friends so easily!
Tory took to liking everybody.
He brought them home with him!
And now this latest visitor
was coming up the stairs, slowly,
dragging one foot after the other.
Painfully...
slowly...
slowly...
slowly.
"Tory! Tory, where have you been?"
A clod of rank, crawling soil
dropped from the dog's chest.
The door to the bedroom moved inwards.
Martin had company.